Doctors want extra money for longer hours during crisis
SCOTLAND’S doctors want extra money for working in life-threatening conditions during the pandemic.
The British Medical Association (BMA) wants the pay hike for consultants and intensive care staff going ‘above and beyond’ their contracted hours.
BMA Scotland chairman Dr Lewis Morrison, said medics had put themselves and their families at risk to care for patients.
He said despite lobbying the Scottish Government, there was ‘real frustration’ no national deal has been agreed to recognise extra hours and changes in working practices.
In a speech to the BMA’s first virtual annual representatives meeting, the chairman said there was a ‘tired narrative that senior doctors were already overpaid’.
Dr Morrison said: ‘Many of the people who have been frontline for months now are nervous about whether we might see a big rise in hospitalisations and very unwell people.
‘I think many people are pretty tired and strung out, both physically and mentally and I think that raises worries for me about the NHS capacity to respond if we have to do it all over again.’
Doctors across the UK were recently awarded a pay rise of 2.8 per cent. The BMA Scotland wants a separate deal in recognition of their extra hours through the covid crisis but has not disclosed how much extra it is looking for.
Dr Morrison added that despite nearly four months of the BMA lobbying the Scottish Government, nothing has been agreed.
He said: ‘It remains a real frustration that the Scottish Government wouldn’t agree a national deal to appropriately reward consultant and specialist doctors for going above and beyond what was asked of them.
‘I think the Scottish Government took their eye off the ball and, I don’t know this, but I suspect the tired narrative that senior doctors are already overpaid – to be seen to be paying doctors more when there has been a tendency to paint doctors as overpaid in the first place – would have been uncomfortable.
‘The bottom line is doctors who have been working in acute intensive care units in
April will be asking themselves how much value has been put on that, in retrospect.
‘They have put themselves at quite considerable risk.’
Scotland’s medical consultants earn between £68,636 and £109,849 a year.
The BMA will now attempt to secure local deals with health boards in the absence of a national agreement.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘The pandemic is having an unprecedented impact on those working in our NHS, and we are hugely grateful for the extraordinary hard work, dedication, skill and commitment of all those working in NHS Scotland during this emergency.
‘The Health Secretary meets regularly with BMA Scotland, most recently on September 11, where all issues related to medical staff, including pay, can be discussed.
‘We continue to engage fully with NHS unions on all issues related to pay and reward.
‘All staff are able to claim payment or time back for extra hours worked. Extra and overtime hours are paid at the national contractual rates.’
‘Pretty tired and strung out’